Madonna and Child by Marianne Stokes
Wednesday evening saw myself and some members of our church visit the local Russian Orthodox congregation with some figures of the Holy couple and the holy donkey (I have decided that any beast bearing that particular burden is well deserving of the epithet) who are currently on a journey throughout the parish as they make their way to 'Bethlehem'. What we didn't know was that the congregation were celebrating the liturgy of supplication to the Theokotos in which they prayed to her for her intercession, that we might be kept safe and free of sin until the Nativity of our Lord.
Of course it was very beautiful. The liturgy hadn't been learned in English yet, so they celebrated it in old Slavonic, breaking into English for the Gospel and the Lord's Prayer so we could join in. I particularly liked the singing, which reminded me of the services at the church I attended when I was much younger (it was attached to my C of E primary school and I sung in the choir) and I liked that we all faced the same way, including the priest. It made it seem much more communal and rather less like a lecture. It occurred to me that the slightly 'reverentially haphazard' approach, apparently common to Orthodox masses (well, Armenian and Russian at any rate) works as well. Things can be changed as you go along if appropriate which made it feel like a real act of sacrifice and worship rather than a well polished ceremony for our entertainment.
Obviously not understanding a word of old Slavonic (apart from the odd words like 'gospodi' and 'slava tiebe' from Taize chants), I found the icons particularly helpful in focusing oneself and the physical discomfort in remaining standing for so long always brought me right back to the object of our prayers. Not just to she whose heart heart would be pierced by a sword, but ultimately the Creator of the Multi/Universe, born to this vale of tears, suffering just as we suffer and indeed, because of our suffering.
That we should pray and ask those saints who have passed to pray for us to live through Advent and witness the culmination of our fasting in the celebration of our Lord's birth reminded me of a conversation between the vicar at my mother church and a young muslim man who had come to visit us with his family and some friends. Upon being asked what Advent was, the vicar rather surprised me - being a broad sort of mainstream Anglican ie neither high nor low - by initially responding that it was a season where we look towards the end of the world. My first thought was something shocked and incoherent along the lines of, "whoa - deep!" as it wasn't the usual packaging of Advent but now, having celebrated the liturgy of supplication with our Orthodox brethren, his explanation rings truer than ever.
Yes, we are looking back to the uncertainty before the event of the Incarnation, wonderful event that it was, but we are also looking to the next coming that sees the end of this world as imagined in Revelations 21:1, 'And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.' Our hope is that we will eventually see the culmination of the (much, much, much) longer Advent that is the span of the Multi/Universe's existence. Once again, it dawned on me just how delicately balanced our faith is and how bizarre/awesome our hopes are. For all people talk about the certainties of religion, it seems to me that when one considers what the Christian faith is actually hoping for, our 'certainties' (death-resurrection-ascension) are really quite small, almost insignificant if not for the fact that, even if only allegorically true, they are equally mind-blowing. All this nonsense - which is all religion, even at it's best, can ever be. Something about fallen humanity's inevitably inadequate response to the experience of God and Creation - goes beyond wanting to have a nice, if indeed any, afterlife, or not going to hell. That's petty trifles in comparison. We are looking to a whole new cosmology, a resurrected Multi/Universe where the divide between things as they ought to be and how they are, won't exist anymore.
And what the liturgy reminded me of, was that this is something we should be working for, praying for, begging for, because we have no certainty that this will actually be.
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Everyone was extremely welcoming and the priest was always careful to let us know we could sit down if we wanted to (hopefully we overturned the stereotype of the weak-kneed Anglican!). We were shown some of the icons, including the pride of the church which was an 18th century icon of the apparition of the Virgin at the battle of Constantinople in AD 911 at the church of Blachaernae.
Later that evening we prayed the Rosary together. Wednesday is the day of the Glorious Mysteries, the last decade being devoted to the Coronation of the Blessed Virgin (by tradition alluded to in Revelations 12:1 and 14:1-5), which I thought wrapped up our evening of devotion - intended and unintended - quite well.
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A very different sort of Marian Devotion: “Mary” by Philip Appleman
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